There are several different means by which materials, such as photoresist, can be removed from a work product. The wet chemical stripping techniques that were used for many years have recently given way to dry stripping techniques or combinations of wet/dry stripping techniques. The dry stripping techniques typically include removing the resist materials by using reactants to bum off the organic materials in the resist at elevated temperatures. The reactants are often created by way of a plasma that is generated using one or more selected gases and a high energy source, such as a radio frequency (rf) or microwave energy source. For example, the plasma in a typical microwave downstream plasma system is arranged to produce a flux of radical species (i.e. reactants), such as, for example, atomic oxygen, which is then directed "downstream" to a process chamber and brought into contact with the work product. The work product is typically a semiconductor wafer on which a resist layer has previously been applied and patterned to form a mask.
A microwave downstream plasma system, such as that described above, is usually included in a fabrication facility along with other fabrication systems and tools, such as, for example, etching systems, ion implantation systems, and deposition systems. Within a typical fabrication facility there can be several stations, each having an assortment of systems or tools for use in the fabrication process. Moreover, the facility provides these stations/systems within a clean room environment to further reduce the chance of contaminants entering the work product.
The costs associated with providing and maintaining a fabrication facility having these types of systems are often very high. For example, it is not uncommon for new facilities to cost hundreds of millions, or even several billions of dollars to build. The operational costs for such a facility are often very high as well. As a result, there is a continuing need to provide more cost effective systems and tools that reduce these expenses while also providing state of the art processing capabilities.